Pallet Garden Ideas Part 1- How To Make A Herb Garden

My husband is a chef and loves cooking so we always have some fresh herbs on our kitchen windowsill. The downside is that they die pretty quickly. So I came up with this idea of a herb garden I could put outdoors and after some research online I’ve picked the one I really liked. But…

Days went by and I struggled to find time to do it. But after a couple of weeks, I finally managed to take a pallet out of my garage and started disassembling it. It was a nice, sunny day till it started raining…

Enough said I have finally managed to finish my pallet herb garden project and after several obstacles( like running out of staples, buying ones I couldn’t use and breaking a drill) it’s ready and I’m very pleased. So here it is Pallet Garden Ideas Part 1 – How to Make A Herb Garden tutorial.

some wooden blocks (they might not be necessary it depends on what type of pallet you are using)

spare planks I’d have left from my previous project

some gardening soil for planting and growing fresh herbs

Dismantling A Pallet

First of all, I needed to remove the bottom planks and get rid of these blocks made of wood shavings. I planned to change them to wooden blocks because they look better and would have been better/easier to paint.

Whole pallet with extra planks and wooden blocks

A disassembled pallet

So after doing so, I was left with a base for my herb garden with the nails sticking out. I was going to reuse them to attach the new wooden blocks so I left them in for that moment. However, I got rid of the ones from the middle plank (red arrow). I used new, shorter nails instead of the old ones so the plank was still attached.

From the planks I’d removed, I only left the wider one that I was going to use. So the final result was:

I had a main base left from a euro pallet. I had 2 same width planks left from my first project and 1 plank from this dismantled pallet.

Changing The Wooden Blocks, Cutting Planks To Size And Sanding

My husband volunteered to cut the blocks and planks for me :) and showed me how to properly hammer nails and not bend them in the process. This sped up things a bit, but fear not the project was no near finish at the end of that day.

Next step was to remove the old nails. I chose the most straight ones and gave them a few strokes with a sandpaper to remove rust. Then with a help from my other half, I nailed the new wooden blocks in place.

With that done I could move on to sanding. I was only going to sand it once on each side with P-60 grit sandpaper to remove dirt and smooth it out a bit. More sanding wasn’t really necessary as I was going to paint it in the end.

Painting

I’d chosen a white paint color mainly because I thought the green of the herbs would look very nice against it. And indeed, it looks very nice :)

I had not given much thought to the paint itself. As long as it was wood paint for outdoors it was fine. The first layer of paint was drunk by the wood as was the second one.

I tried to cover every single hole and crack to make sure a water won’t get inside. Next time, I’ll just get the wood filler. Well, you always learn something new, aren’t you?

As you can imagine I only got one paint tin and as it wasn’t enough I needed to get another one but, unfortunately, they run out in the store I got it from. So a trip to town was in order to get some more paint.

Luckily enough the second tin of paint was much nicer, thicker and super white. Two more coats later and my project started to look how I wanted it to :)

The thing is with painting it takes time. Every coat of paint has to dry at least 24 hours before applying next one. So the painting itself took me several days in total to achieve desired results.

Assembling

So the time for assembling my herb garden finally arrived :) I put the pallet on the grass and measured to know how much of the weed fabric I’ll need to form some sort of pocket. The way I chose to do it doesn’t include any wood bottom for each shelf holding soil and herbs so it’s less drilling and screwing.

I thought I’d give it a go first and if that solution didn’t work then I probably will make wooden bottoms.

You ask why bother with a fabric in a first place and not just use only the planks? The reason is that I didn’t want the wood to have direct contact with wet soil even if it’s painted.

The second reason is exactly that. I didn’ want the painted wood to be in direct contact with soil which I’m going to put eating herbs in. You never know if some of the paint won’t get into the soil. I’m not sure if it’s going to work 100% but this way the chances are smaller that it will.

I decided to double up the fabric layer because it seemed a bit thin to me. It really depends on what fabric you’re going to use.

The size I cut out was 90 x 90cm (35.4 x 35.4 in). The pallet was 80cm(31.5 in) wide and I added extra just in case. Then I folded the fabric in half so I had 90 (35.4 in) x 45cm (17.7 in). I started at the bottom plank. I took the longer side of the folded fabric and stapled it to the top of the plank.

Then I smoothed it out as you can see on the picture. Underneath it, I put one of the short planks “face down”(the side you wanted to be outside/visible went on the ground). I stapled the fabric along the edges of both planks. You can staple it whenever you like just to secure it in place.

Next step was to pick up the plank and put it on top of the wooden blocks so the fabric goes inside the “pocket”. Just make sure you are happy with how the fabric is placed/stapled.

Now the drilling. You can use nails and hammer them, but I didn’t want to take any chances that my blocks will split. So size 4 wooden drill did the trick, however, I manage to break it :) I drilled two holes in each block and put two screws in. All that holds the plank nicely in place. You just have to repeat the whole process with the other two planks.

Final Effect

And that’s it! Now the herb garden is ready for some soil and herbs.

I hope you liked my step by step tutorial. If something is not clear feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line via contact page :)

Kasia is an owner of Wooden Pallet Projects Toolbox. She’s a DIY and upcycling enthusiast. If she’s not painting, sanding or drilling she’s writing about power tools or tips for DIY and pallet projects that make the creative process easier and more fun!

10 thoughts on “Pallet Garden Ideas Part 1- How To Make A Herb Garden”

Wow this is very interesting and something I have never heard of. I love what you have done with your projects and your website is totally awesome! How long does it take you to complete a pallet project?

This is a very unique website/project and I haven’t seen anybody do this. Is this your only webpage?

Hi Christopher, Thanks for a nice comment :) As for my projects it really depends on many things like available resources i.e pallets, weather (as I live in England I have to squeeze them between rainy days due to not enough space in the garage at the moment lol), spare time and difficulty of the project itself. The last one – Pallet Herb Garden took me 10 days or so to do. It’s doable in 1 and then with painting you have to wait for it to dry before you put next coat on. But you know sometimes busy life and weather conditions won’t allow you to do it as quickly as you want lol. The idea with this website was to put everything you need in one place to make any kind of pallet projects so you don’t have to waste time looking for solutions all over the internet. And yes this is my only website for now:) Thank you for dropping by :) Kasia

What a great idea! I live in a rental so this would be the perfect project! I’m not much of a gardener but do make an attempt every spring to get flowers and plant them with my daughter. Could you also put flowers in these? I think it would be so pretty.

Hi Melody, thanks for your comment :) I’m glad that you like this pallet project and flowers are a definitely great idea! The hanging kind would look awesome. I may do that myself actually lol Just have to wait till spring unfortunately. I’ll keep you posted on this one. Meanwhile have a great Monday!

I love to garden and love DIY, so I am glad I found this post. This is a great step by step guide on how to make an herb garden out of pallets. Do you have a recommendation on where I can get pallets from? Your end product looks like something we would buy in a store. Looks great! I am going to try this once I find pallets to use. Thanks for the idea. Spring is only a little time away.

Hi Rina, I’m sorry for late reply but the end of the year is usually very busy for me and I don’t have as much time as I wish I had to work on my blog. Anyway, I’m pleased you liked my project :)It’was pretty straightforward although now after over 1 year later I’d change one thing. The material I’ve used for the shelves. I’d either make them all wooden or used something different. Although it still holds the turf it seems to tear easily when pulled and it might eventually start to deteriorated. I definitely have to look into it :) As for your question. It’s easier to find some pallets from local places like a small garden and hardware stores. If you need more info why not check these articles: Know Your Pallets and Getting Started Working With Pallets. Thanks for stopping by!

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